Last Bodyguard
September 11, 2013
I study painting like young Fuehrer but as he did abandon studio to protect Fatherland. Stalin’s hordes are occupying other half of Poland in 1939 when someone shoots me in chest. Go home, superiors say. No, I can still serve. They agree and I soon earn introduction to Fuehrer who speaks politely and allows me to guard and travel with him.
This is great time. Fuehrer’s in prime and Wehrmacht is stomping France and Balkans and rest of Poland and rolling toward Moscow. I’m with greatest man in greatest war ever. When Russia counterattacks and America enters, Fuehrer becomes less happy. On cold night I pass as he gazes at candlelit painting of Frederick the Great, seeking comfort and inspiration. I respectfully move past sacred communion.
People lie he’s killing millions of Jews. He is not or wouldn’t be Fuehrer. I certainly know nothing of this. I only see wonderful man and wife Eva dead together last day April 1945. Fuehrer’s head is on table and Eva’s next to him on sofa. I often think about this. Eight years Russians torture me in prisons and camps. You can’t change truth, I say, and decades later enter heaven knowing I served special man.